West Side Story: Original Broadway Cast Recording

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Joan Peyser wrote in Bernstein: A Biography (1987): "As a composer, Bernstein is most renowned for West Side Story, a fact that causes him anguish, for he would prefer to enter the pantheon with a symphony or grand opera. But as one of Mozart's highest achievements was The Magic Flute, a work for the popular theater of the day, so West Side Story may one day possess those particular credentials Bernstein has coveted all of his life" (p. 16).
David Denby wrote in the New Yorker: "[T]he show, which opened fifty years ago, is a masterpiece of American musical theatre — perhaps the masterpiece" ("Critic's Notebook: A Place For It," 9/17/07).
And if you ask me, yes, it is the masterpiece of American musical theatre and worthy of comparison to The Magic Flute. I may be prejudiced though, because this is the first record album I can remember hearing, around the age of 5. Some things were hard to understand, but the big sweeping feelings about good and bad things happening came across very clearly.